Lois McMaster Bujold - Barrayar (1991)

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She didn't feel anything, no grief or remorse, though her heart was racing and her breath came in gasps. A shocky combat-high, that immortal rush that made men charge machine guns. So this was what the war-addicts came for.

Lois McMaster Bujold
One step at a time, I can walk around the world. Watch me.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Any community's arm of force — military, police, security — needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.

Lois McMaster Bujold
You can say a lot in a little time, if you stick to words of one syllable.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Good soldiers never pass up a chance to eat or sleep. They never know how much they'll be called on to do before the next chance.

Lois McMaster Bujold
But pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?

Lois McMaster Bujold
I would fight the world for you, but I'm damned if I can figure out how to save you from yourself.

Lois McMaster Bujold
You can't choose between evil and evil, in the dark, by logic. You can only cling to some safety line of principle.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Welcome to Barrayar, son. Here you go: have a world of wealth and poverty, wrenching change and rooted history. Have a birth; have two. Have a name. Miles means "soldier," but don't let the power of suggestion overwhelm you. Have a twisted form in a society that loathes and fears the mutations that have been its deepest agony. Have a title, wealth, power, and all the hatred and envy they will draw. Have your body ripped apart and re-arranged. Inherit an array of friends and enemies you never made. Have a grandfather from hell. Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Experience suggests it doesn't matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Check your assumptions. In fact, check your assumptions at the door.

Lois McMaster Bujold
I have no right to risk. No, that's not quite correct. I have no right to failure. And I don't trust myself anymore. I don't know what's happened to my edge. Lost it in a strange land.

Lois McMaster Bujold
It's... a transcendental act. Making life. I thought about that when I was carrying Miles. 'By this act, I bring one death into the world.' One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between.

Lois McMaster Bujold
With all this manure around, there's got to be a pony someplace.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible. We're not giving up. We're waiting for a better opportunity to win.

Lois McMaster Bujold